She turned down the rear-view mirror and examined her eyes. She pouted then and turned her head to one side. He yawned.
“You look smashing.”
“Not overdressed now?”
“No. Just right.”
“About half-ten then? Will that be time enough?”
“If I can find her by then, I’ll bring her.”
She opened the door.
“I’d go around to her place myself, you know, only she might eat the head off me.”
He nodded and yawned again. She peered at him.
“Did you get any sleep at all?”
“A bit. Enough. Don’t buy any of that stuff, do you hear me?”
“I’m just looking. It’d be good to have an idea of expense, wouldn’t it?”
He edged back into the traffic and waved as he passed her. Home from the hospital just after one, couldn’t sleep. Malone hadn’t phoned. To hell with the time, he had decided-he needed to know what was going on. Malone had been out late, trying to find the brother. His mind was made up, he had told Minogue. Terry would be better off inside than on the street. He’d gone to bed wide awake at two o’clock, had read for a while but still couldn’t sleep. The odd thing was that he’d hardly thought about Iseult at all. It was some vague, airy feeling in his chest that had kept him awake. He still had a confused memory of sitting on the edge of the bed, looking out through the trees at the dawn.
Several times as he traversed the Coombe, he found himself still searching for Liam Hickey’s face on men he saw. He was last in for the briefing. He sat next to Kilmartin. Murtagh began detailing the timetables for Jack Mullen.
“Voh’ Lay-bah’s left us in the lurch again,” Kilmartin whispered. “You and me are going to sit down and have a chat about this. Before this day is out too, pal.”
“Later, James.”
“Said he mightn’t be able to make it in until Monday, if you please.”
Minogue’s turn came next. He found himself answering a query about Alan Kenny with the reply that he had not ruled out arresting Kenny on drug-trafficking charges. Kilmartin pressed him hard on Kenny’s alibis. Minogue didn’t argue: yes, he agreed with Murtagh, Kenny stunk. No, it wasn’t too much of a risk to leave Kenny stew in the open. The surveillance on Kenny since his interview had shown nothing odd yet.
Presenting the business of Hickey knowing which tape had been stolen hadn’t won Kilmartin over. It wasn’t bulletproof, was it, was his attitude yet.
“Well, why the hell does this scut Hickey need all day to rest? Says who?”
“Says the doctor who examined him. A Doctor Monaghan.”
“How bad of a hiding did he get?”
“He was up in a heap. Banged around the head, bruising all over. He was kicked unconscious.”
“Huh. The poor little shite. I don’t think. You don’t think he was faking it?”
“Not that I could see.”
Sheehy started into his lists next. In the laconic delivery, Minogue detected a weariness which told him that all the door-to-door officers were just about fed up. Kilmartin told him to get a second interview out of the barman who had put them on to Kenny. Sheehy nodded. Minogue waited until Murtagh began detailing from the photocopies of the final pathology report before nudging Kilmartin.
“Jim, I need to get away for a couple of hours. Personal.”
Kilmartin kept reading.
“Back by dinner-time,” Minogue added.
“First we have Molly falling by the wayside,” Kilmartin declared. “Is this contagious or something? Or just because it’s Saturday?”
For a reason that Minogue couldn’t figure out even later as he sped down the quays, shaking his head with anger and embarrassment, he had told Kilmartin about Iseult. He turned onto Capel Street bridge, still squirming at the recollection of Kilmartin’s wink. And Eilis giving him that look as he hurried out red-faced! Essex Street was chock-a-block. Reluctantly he paid a tenner deposit to the attendant at a new car-park on the site of a recently demolished building.
Iseult needed ten minutes to finish planing a piece of wood for the installation. Minogue studied it and asked no questions. The horns were generic, he decided. He recognized a hoof further back.
“So you and Ma were just meeting for a cup of coffee anyway,” said Iseult. Minogue yawned.
“That’s it. So you’ll join us, will you?”
“And Ma didn’t throw a fit?”
“Calm, cool and collected. But she’s hurt that you didn’t tell her first, I think.”
Iseult stopped planing and glanced over. Minogue looked back. She resumed planing.
“So will you?” he asked again.
“No lectures, no guilt trips?”
“I think your mother would like to hug you and hold you, Iseult.”
She put down the plane and glared at him. He looked at his watch.
They turned onto Fleet Street. Bewleys was around the corner. He could smell the roasting beans over the diesel smoke, from the buses.
“I make the decisions,” she said over the noise of the traffic. She kept rubbing her hands with a rag she had brought from the studio. “No preaching, right?”
“Honour of God, Iseult, it sounds like the United Nations here or something. It’s your mother and father you’re meeting for a cup of coffee.”
“Well, cranky, isn’t it with you this morning, is it now!”
He debated telling her that this cup of coffee could cost him upwards of five quid.
“I didn’t sleep a whole lot last night.”
“That’s too bad. I had a great sleep. I think the morning thing might be over. Maybe now that everything’s out in the open… Maybe it was just nerves.”
“Well, you were never short of them.”
“What?”
“You always had a nerve.”
She flicked the rag at him before stuffing it into the back pocket of her jeans. Her pace slowed just after they turned onto Westmoreland Street. Minogue looked over at Iseult and then followed her gaze down through the crowd of pedestrians. Kathleen had been waiting outside the restaurant. She had spotted them. There was something about her broad smile and vigorous wave which made Minogue hesitate. At least she didn’t have shopping bags under her arm, he thought, shopping bags full of baby clothes.
“What the hell kind of a caper is this?” Kilmartin asked. “Still celebrating, are we? Ah no, man. Have to get back. Come on now.”
The Chief Inspector belched.
“I mean, as if things weren’t bad enough now with this…”
Minogue looked over at him.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong! I didn’t mean the good news, oh, no! Grandfather… Ha ha ha! Oops.”
Minogue eyed his colleague. Kilmartin patted his stomach in an effort to tease out another belch.
“We have to move with the times now, Matt. If you’re happy, I’m happy. And Kathleen is reconciled, isn’t she? Sure, that’s great! Great entirely, man, great!”
Reconciled, thought Minogue. He recalled Iseult and Kathleen embracing, crying both, and Bewleys’ clientele looking shyly on.
“What I actually meant,” said Kilmartin in a voice laden with sarcasm, “was that bastard above in the hospital, Hickey, doing a bunk on us. Looks bad for us, very bad.”
Minogue shrugged.
“My God, man, you don’t sound too worried about this!” said Kilmartin.
